About my first born...

I found this on another blog and thought I’d borrow it! Thanks, Jenny!

But I think I’ll rename it: "About my first and only pregnancy with my twins…"

1. Were you married at the time? Yes – about 3 years
2. What were your reactions? Really?? I didn’t quite believe I was pregnant – I always thought I’d have some sort of “internal knowledge” or “gut-feeling” about it…
3. How old were you? 28
4. How did you find out you were pregnant? We were on a weekend trip to Madison, WI for our friends’ Neil and Missie’s wedding when I realized that pregnancy might be a possibility. A few hours before the wedding while we were in the hotel getting ready, I made Bill drive to the nearest Walgreen's to buy a pregnancy test kit. He came back with a Valu-Pak of 3. I took 2 tests before the wedding and one the following day. They all had a very, very faint + sign appear. Even after that, when I went back to work on Monday, I had one of the other nurses draw blood and asked the lab to run a test. After all that, it finally sunk in.
5. Who did you tell first? My parents, then Bill’s parents, then our siblings.
6. Did you want to find out the sex? I did not, but Bill did. The night prior to our first ultrasound at 20 weeks, I laughed and jokingly said to him, “OK, we’ll find out the sex of the baby only if it’s twins.” Ha. That’ll teach me…
7. Did you deliver early or late? With the twins, my doctor didn’t want to let me go beyond 37 weeks. So, after some 3rd trimester complications, I became pre-eclampic and was induced right at 37 weeks – on the nose.
8. Did you have morning sickness? Just for the first 3 months. I had to snack continuously to avoid it. And I dreaded brushing my teeth…that was the worst.
9. What did you crave? 6-inch Cold Cut Combo on wheat. (We lived close to a Subway).
10. Who irritated you the most? Nobody.
11. What was your first child's sex? One of each!
12. How many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy? 64. I know!! But the most horrible part is that I gained 22 of those lbs in the last week!
13. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? I started having contractions at 31 weeks and spent a month in the hospital on bedrest. But it wasn’t actually as bad as it sounds – I was at the hospital where I worked so I got to see lots of friendly faces all the time, people brought me 3 meals a day, and I didn’t have to clean. Kinda like being on a spa vacation.
14. Where did you give birth? KU Medical Center in Kansas City
15. How many hours were you in labor? They started the induction at 6:00 am, but Bill and I just sat around watching boring TV shows all morning with no excitement at all. At about noon, they manually broke my water – but neglected to tell me that I might start having a little bit of pain associated with contractions. Hello??? It hit me like a freight train right out of the blue. It really took me awhile to figure out what was going on. I got my epidural shortly after that and we just hung out again. Around 4:00 pm I had to start pushing and Will was born 5 minutes later.
16. Who drove you to the hospital? My sister Jill actually went with me a routine appointment the day before. My BP was too high and I had gained a ton – so they just admitted me right then. I remember being so thankful for my Jilly being there during that time. She so kindly helped me shave my legs (since I couldn't reach them anymore) before my last doctors appointment, and upon my crazy request, she made a special trip to Kohl's to get me some small gold hoop earrings so I would have some type of birth-giving-appropriate earrings to wear for the big day.
17. Who watched? Just Bill. Oh yeah, and then like 2 OB doctors, a Neonatologist, a third year resident, a first year resident, a couple med students, 2 NICU nurses, 3 OB nurses, a respiratory therapist, and a few other random strangers that just happened to be in the vicinity.
18. Was it natural or c-section? Natural.
19. Did you take medicine to ease the pain? I loved my epidural. Although I’m not convinced it was actually working…
20. How much did your child weigh? Will was 7–4 and Madison was 5-12.
21. Did your child have any complications? On the day after she was born, they thought Maddie has a seizure so she was moved into the NICU and had a CT of her head, a lumbar puncture, lots of IVs and was started on antibiotics. Everything ended up just fine for her. Will and I went home on day #3 and Maddie joined us on day #5.
22. What did you name him/her? William Dais (after a long Gallagher family tradition – and my maiden name) and Madison Brynn (after the city in Wisconsin where we fell in love and years later found out we were pregnant – and Bill’s favorite name)
23. How old is your first born today? Nine. gulp…

Whew...that required actual thought!

Funny how certain memories around this time seem so vivid, while with others, I struggle to remember if that was actually me - or if I saw it in a movie...